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The Legion Alpha servers have officially returned after the holiday break. Make sure to check out the new build, which includes new mounts, specialisations, dungeons, quests and even the Shamans!

Specialisations

In the latest build, one of the larger updates, a huge number of new specialisations have opened up. To add to the current list available, the new ones are:

Vengeance Demon Hunter

Guardian Druid

Restoration Druid

Marksmanship Hunter

Discipline Priest

Elemental Shaman

Enhancement Shaman

You read it right, the Shamans have finally appeared on the Alpha!

New Zone and Dungeon

We're also going to see a new questing zone unlocked: Val'sharah. If you're interested in the lore behind this zone, make sure to check out our post detailing the story, as well as an album of screenshots. New quests also means the new level cap has increased to level 106.

Contained within the new zone is another 5-man dungeon that has been made available: Darkheart Thicket. You can check out a video of the dungeon by @Sco, the Guild Master of Method, below.

The dungeon follows the players as they attempt to free Malfurion Stormrage from the Emerald Nightmare. The adventurers must cut their way into the heart of the Thicket, where they will face the Shade of Xavius.

Xavius was the councilor to Queen Azshara during the War of the Ancients. He convinced her that Sargeras was actually a god that must be summoned by the Highborne, the mages of the elves. Xavius was successful in summoning huge numbers of demons, including high ranking commanders such as Hakkar the Houndmaster, Mannoroth and Archimonde.

Malfurion eventually interrupted Xavius' spell by venturing into the Emerald Dream, where he destroyed Xavius completely. Sargeras was unhappy with his minion and punished him for his failures. He tortured the elf's spirit, but eventually realised that Xavius could still be of use to him.

Sargeras returned Xavius to life, but not as he once was. He gave him a new body, with hooves and horns, claws and a tail. He made him a satyr. Sargeras tasked Xavius with two things: turn as many Highborne into satyrs and bring Malfurion to Sargeras.

Xavius conducted these tasks with glee, promising the elven mages unlimited power and a seat at the side of Sargeras. The second task proved more difficult, however, since Malfurion was not alone. With the aid of Shandris Feathermoon, a follower of Tyrande, they killed Xavius. Shandris pierced Xavius with an arrow, allowing Malfurion to turn Xavius into a tree. The tree sucked the energy from the body of the satyr, feeding off of his life. Malfurion sent the tree to the bottom of the sea.

This wasn't the end for Xavius; through the presumed intervention of the Old Gods, he survived the Shattering and ended up returning 10,000 years later in the Emerald Nighmare. In his new form, he corrupted the Emerald Dream by manipulating Fandral Staghelm into planting a branch of his tree into Teldrassil, the new World Tree.

It is in this new form of the Nightmare Lord that we see Xavius in Darkheart Thicket.

New Mounts

The new build has also seen a number of new models popping up in the client. Make sure to check out the videos below from PyPGamers Network, with 3D models of the new mounts:

UI Changes

As noted by @Elvinelol in this image, it looks like the default frames of the Blizzard UI are now going to track DoTs for us. They might just be able to replace most add-ons at this rate!

Challenge Mode Keystone Affixes

The Legion Challenge modes are going to be using Keystones to unlock different difficulties, similar to the keystones of Diablo III rifts. It looks like there are going to be extra buffs and debuffs to keep them challenging at higher levels of play:

Decay - All players suffer 5000 damage every 3 sec while the challenge is active.

Skittish - Threat generated on all enemies decays very rapidly.

Attenuated - Player damage dealt to all enemies is reduced the farther the attacker is from a target, up to a maximum of 50%.

Necrotic - All enemies' melee attacks apply a stacking disease that inflicts damage over time and reduces healing received.

Teeming - Additional non-boss enemies are present throughout the dungeon.

Bolstering - When any non-boss enemy dies, its death cry empowers nearby allies, increasing their maximum health and damage by 20%.

Tyrannical - Boss enemies have 50% more health and inflict up to 30% increased damage.

Blue Posts and Tweets Concerning Alpha

Celestalon's Alpha Build Notes

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Hey all,

There’s a new Alpha build today, which includes a number of new additions and changes. We’d like to provide some additional context and info, and also focus discussion on the topics that will provide the most useful feedback at the moment.

Tank and Healer Abilities and Cooldowns - Tanks and Healers will notice significant changes to the tuning on many of their defensive abilities. These may appear to be “nerfs” at first glance, but are actually part of a widespread adjustment to improve overall tank (and tank healer) gameplay, that includes reducing the strength/frequency of defensive cooldowns, and adjusting creature tuning to compensate. We’ve made a separate thread to give full context about these changes here: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/20420493025

New Logging Feature - The Advanced Combat Log now includes additional data that will be of use to developers and users of data analysis sites and tools. We’ve made a separate thread to provide the data structure for the new COMBATANT_INFO log event here: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/20419432775

New Specializations Unlocked – There are 7 new specializations ready for testing! Several additional specializations have been unlocked for testing. We’d love any and all feedback about their gameplay, artifact quest lines, abilities, etc.

Vengeance Demon Hunter – NOTE: Vengeance abilities, talents, and artifact traits are still preliminary and are being heavily iterated on.

Guardian Druid

Restoration Druid

Marksmanship Hunter

Discipline Priest

Enhancement Shaman

Elemental Shaman

Honorable Medallion – This build includes our solution for the “CC break trinket” for low level classes. Upon entering a battleground or arena for the first time, players will learn the “Honorable Medallion” (temp name) spell. This spell removes all movement impairing effects and all effects which cause loss of control of your character while in PvP combat and has a 3 minute cooldown. Players can learn this spell at any level and it resides in the General section of your spell book. The first row of PvP talents then modifies the Honorable Medallion. This will provide the “CC break trinket” mechanic for all levels of PvP player. Feedback on this solution would be appreciated!

Talent Design Status - We’ve reached a ‘first draft’ level of design for talents for all specializations. There are some that we still have outstanding plans to revise or replace, but the vast majority are ready for feedback. Tuning has not been done, so you’ll have to imagine that numbers are adjusted such that talents are balanced, but we’d love to hear feedback about what talents you like or dislike. Especially useful is feedback on particular talent rows, and whether they feel like interesting choices or not (again, assuming numbers will be balanced).

Artifact Trait Design Status - More artifacts are available, and you’ll be able to unlock further traits on existing artifacts. At this time, feedback is welcome on artifact traits, but we still have much work to do on them, and have many revisions planned. Expect significant change to many of the artifact traits in the future.

Our first tweet is a reply to a question concerning the raid level relics in Legion. The user wanted to know whether or not we can choose which trait on our artifacts is improved with the raid level relics.

Our second tweet is in response to concerns that tank changes in Legion are simply going to make the game more passive, rather than adding exciting gameplay.

Our last tweet is looking at the new wardrobe system in Legion, where Tabards will finally be removed from our bags and added into Transmog!

If you managed to get an invite to the Alpha, make sure that you follow the instructions set out by Blizzard in their post. It seems the majority of players aren't receiving invites via e-mail, but rather through their Battle.net client. Make sure to check and enjoy the Alpha if you're in!

Patch 7.1.5 brings heavy changes to some classes and the developer team discusses with the community the latest class changes.
The latest class changes can be found here.
Hunter (Marksmanship)
Sigma
There's a lot to discuss here--some we agree with and some we don't--but I want to swing by at least on this specific observation. We agree we don't want a major breakpoint between 2 and 3 Aimed Shots after a Marked Shot (at least, not at a middling amount like 21% haste that will affect gear choice throughout the expansion). We're not decided on a fix yet; in particular, whether the standard amount should be two Aimed Shots after a Marked Shot, or three (if two, it would still be okay to have three during Bloodlust and similar situations). The ability would be tuned around whichever option. Two has some advantages like concentrating the Vulnerable burst more, requiring standing still for less time to fully utilize it, and potentially having enough leeway for an instant before one of the Aimed Shots.
(Source)
Monk (Windwalker)
Ornyx
Hey all,
Just to reiterate here (saw it brought up in the Live Q&A chat today), but we are aware of feedback regarding both Storm, Earth, and Fire and Serenity on the 7.1.5 PTR.
I don't have anything specific for this moment, but know that we've passed along notes on both of these skills to the development team. We will update you once we have more to share.
Thank you for a response - any response.
Please, though, don't let this be like what happened on the 7.1 ptr and the Demon Hunters, where we got this exact sort of message, and then silence. Last time, when that happened, I rerolled to monk. I'm so anxious it will happen yet again.
Not necessarily our goal, and I'm not saying we have any changes planned for these two skills within 7.1.5's PTR cycle (I am not sure what's on the plate there for further Monk changes), but I would like to at least work to get something shared on this, whether its a bit of philosophy or otherwise.
We have had some communication shortcomings over the past while, but we are trying something a bit new with our internal processes which should benefit us all in the long-term. :)
He also mentioned that they will be taking a look at Serenity, just as a note!
Edit: Here's a link to the portion of the Q&A where Ion and Josh talked about Storm, Earth, and Fire and Serenity.
(Source)
Shaman (Enhancement)
Lore
Boulderfist is intended as a talent choice that creates some gaps in your rotation, by replacing your no-cooldown resource builder with something that’s overall stronger, but has charges. In 7.1, the recharge time isn’t long enough for those gaps to ever actually happen, especially with the most popular Enhancement talent build adding several more active abilities to your rotation. Its power level was also simply too high, and in this case, we’d rather let this talent have its intended effect on the pace of your rotation and buff the spec as a whole to compensate.

Our intent is that if you want to use an ability every GCD, you should choose one of the other options in that row. Boulderfist should result in an overall more methodical pace that is more about having a little time to plan upcoming abilities. When Boulderfist is the hands-down best option in that row, that doesn’t feel like much of a choice, and as we continue tuning for 7.1.5, we hope to address this by bringing it in line with the others.
While I can appreciate that there was an original design intent behind Boulderfist, the spec as it currently exists on Live is as enjoyable to play as it's ever been since I rolled my Shaman back in BC.

We've heard it reiterated over and over (and over) again by the developers that if something about a spec felt too mandatory, it would just get rolled into the spec. I play this spec as my main because it is fun; if I cared strictly about maximum overall damage output, I'd focus on my Rogue instead. Changing a mechanic like this runs counter to the design philosophy that's been so oft repeated.
Thanks for all the feedback; this has been a consistent theme throughout the thread and elsewhere. And we don't want to disrupt the familiar playstyle of 7.1 Enhancement, if in fact the specific pacing of Boulderfist's recharge time is a major part of what makes it work so well. We will still have to address the power level in some way without diluting the feel that's been discussed here. We are currently planning the following for PTR (uncertain on timing):
Boulderfist recharge time back to 6 seconds
Boulderfist no longer gives a bonus to critical strike
Rockbiter generates 20 Maelstrom (from 15)
(Source)
Warlocks
Sigma
That's all fine and dandy, now get to work fixing warlocks.
Incidentally--Imp/Succubus/Voidwalker/Felhunter/Felguard all deal 20% more damage. Most of that was datamined normally, but in particular, the increase to Felguard's attack power likely was not (simply because it's something that happens server-side).

I can think of one other thing worth calling attention to for feedback/testing that may have been missed: Mark of the Ancient Priestess and Mark of the Distant Army should do noticeably more healing/damage and be more worth using. Some of the stat-based neck enchants were also increased, but that will be clear in tooltips. Hidden Satyr scales correctly with gear now as well, and may be slightly weaker, but for the most part the other enchants were buffed to roughly its level.
(Source)

Well, in the wake of Doubleagent and his 110 ding without leaving the Padaren start zone, we have another insane achievement: Cerli from The Maelstrom has maxed out his Unholy Artifact weapon, getting the final, 54th, trait unlocked after acquiring a total of 65 million artifact power. For those of you that may not be aware, after you finish up your 34 normal traits you get the bonus trait you can put another 20 points in. So that's 5 million for the normal upgrades and then another measly 60 until you're maxed. At this point that really is a VERY unholy weapon and you really could say it's devoured someone's life!

Go here the full event, click to 21 hours in.
As you'd imagine this took a lot of Mythic+ dungeons, 2067 completed in time, in fact, with 383 Darkheart Thicket, 818 Maw of Souls, 444 Court of Stars and then a meager number of clears for the other ones (64 VoW, 75 WoA, etc), and then there's probably a fair number of runs not completed in time to add to that! In case you were wondering, he has around 53 days played on level 110 and he actually already has 69 million AP at the moment.
All joking aside, congratulations to Cerli on this achievement and you can check out his stream here, so hop on there and say gz!

7.1.5 testing continues as test realms were updated with a new build.
Another set of Legendary item updates, class changes, Tier 19 set bonus changes and even a blue post to take datamined information with a grain of salt.
Lore
Many class tuning changes for this build (and subsequent builds) are not likely to appear directly via datamining. Tooltip values for spells should still show their new amounts properly in-game, but many of these changes are being done in a way that's less apparent through datamining.

For more clarity on why: we're getting to the point of the PTR development cycle where we're starting to make heavy changes intended for overall performance balance between classes. In the past, this would have been done by changing each affected spell individually, which can be a slow process. To allow for more rapid iteration during the PTR process, we're instead those putting changes into a passive aura for each spec. That means only 1 "spell" needs to be modified, instead of several, which allows us to make more adjustments in total per build.